Advancements in battery innovation are transforming each mobility and energy systems alike, in accordance with Kurt Kelty, vice chairman of battery, propulsion, and sustainability at General Motors (GM). On the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) Fall Colloquium, Kelty explored how GM is bringing next-generation battery technologies from lab to commercialization, driving American battery innovation forward. The colloquium is an element of the continuing MITEI Presents: Advancing the Energy Transition speaker series.
At GM, Kelty’s team is primarily focused on three things: first, improving affordability to get more electric vehicles (EVs) on the road. “How do you drive down the fee?” Kelty asked the audience. “It is the batteries. The batteries make up about 30 percent of the fee of the vehicle.” Second, his team strives to enhance battery performance, including charging speed and energy density. Third, they’re working on localizing the provision chain. “We have got to accumulate our resilience and our independence here in North America, so we’re not counting on materials coming from China,” Kelty explained.
To help their efforts, resources are being poured into the virtualization space, significantly cutting down on time dedicated to research and development. Now, Kelty’s team can do modeling up front using artificial intelligence, reducing what previously would have taken months to some of days.
“If you wish to modify … the nickel content ever so barely, we will in a short time model: ‘OK, how’s that going to affect the energy density? The security? How’s that going to affect the charge capability?’” said Kelty. “We are able to have a look at that on the cell level, then the pack level, then the vehicle level.”
Kelty revealed that they’ve found an answer that addresses affordability, accessibility, and commercialization: lithium manganese-rich (LMR) batteries. Previously, the industry looked to cut back costs by lowering the quantity of cobalt in batteries by adding greater amounts of nickel. These high-nickel batteries are in most cars on the road in the USA on account of their high range. LMR batteries, though, take things a step further by reducing the quantity of nickel and adding more manganese, which drives the fee of batteries down even further while maintaining range.
Lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries are the chemistry of selection in China, known for low price, high cycle life, and high safety. With LMR batteries, the fee is comparable to LFP with a variety that’s closer to high-nickel. “That’s what’s really a breakthrough,” said Kelty.
LMR batteries should not recent, but there have been challenges to adopting them, in accordance with Kelty. “People knew about it, but they didn’t know learn how to commercialize it. They didn’t know learn how to make it work in an EV,” he explained. Now that GM has found out commercialization, they will probably be the primary to market these batteries of their EVs in 2028.
Kelty also expressed excitement over the usage of vehicle-to-grid technologies in the long run. Using a bidirectional charger with a two-way flow of energy, EVs could charge, but additionally send power from their batteries back to the electrical grid. This might allow customers to charge “their vehicles at night when the electricity prices are really low, and so they can discharge it in the course of the day when electricity rates are really high,” he said.
Along with working within the transportation sector, GM is exploring ways to increase their battery expertise into applications in grid-scale energy storage. “It’s a giant market immediately, however it’s growing in a short time due to the information center growth,” said Kelty.
When seeking to the long run of battery manufacturing and EVs in the USA, Kelty stays optimistic: “we’ve got the technology here to make it occur. We’ve all the time had the innovation here. Now, we’re getting an increasing number of of the manufacturing. We’re getting that each one together. We’ve got just tremendous opportunity here that I’m hopeful we’re going to find a way to make the most of and really construct an enormous battery industry here.”
This speaker series highlights energy experts and leaders on the forefront of the scientific, technological, and policy solutions needed to remodel our energy systems. Visit MITEI’s Events page for more information on this and extra events.
